Baby girl abandoned in Kashmir hospital, fifth case this year

A newborn baby girl was 'abandoned' in Kashmir's only child care hospital on Friday, fifth such case to be reported in the Muslim majority valley this year.

Officials at the GB pant hospital in Srinagar said that the baby girl was admitted after a woman brought her for treatment.

"The newborn baby's umbilical cord was found loosely tied by a thread and was bleeding. She was admitted in a ward," a doctor of the hospital said. "Soon the staff found that the woman had left the baby in the ward," he said.

The doctor stated that the information provided by the woman during the admission process was "expected to be fake". "The mobile number she provided is not working," said the doctor.

The abandonment of newborn babies particularly girl child is a recent phenomenon in Kashmir valley, where, sociologists believe, women were always more emancipated than their counterparts in rest of the South Asia.

Of the five cases of child abandonment this year, only one was a day-old- boy, who was left on the stairs of a Sufi shrine in the city last month.

Sociologists are not certain about the reason of the growing trend but cite many intertwined social changes in the society.

They blame increasing materialistic outlook in the society, prevalence of premarital and extramarital affairs, extravagant marriages and sudden exposure to mass media.